


paperback dreams, in their deep doze

by LunDiiVith



Series: morning doves [4]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Gen, Miraak Bitches At His Cultists: The Fic, have you ever wondered why miraak had the bright idea to invite you to solstheim? well, wasn't intended to be comedy but everyone in this fic is dumbfuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:34:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25980694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunDiiVith/pseuds/LunDiiVith
Summary: A few glimpses into the point of view of everyone's favourite nasty man/First Dragonborn.
Series: morning doves [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1714618
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	paperback dreams, in their deep doze

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this a super long time ago. Originally, it was supposed to be the first chapter of [ahrk rul fin Lein dahmaan](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25328932/chapters/61411747), like a year or so ago, but I reestructured and this got cut. But we all deserve Miraak Being A Dick To People content, so it's back.
> 
> Title from Glass Animals, "Black Mambo". I dunno why but a lot of ZABA songs remind me of Miraak. It's the vibes, I guess. Moist enough for Apocrypha. ...Does that make sense?

Miraak closed his eyes.

He sat inside a nest of papers, scrolls, and odd ends he’d organized into a circle. Runes were loose all around, traces of magic overwriting recipes and journals. The lack of major currents of wind was an advantage, kept everything still and eternal. Just like Apocrypha’s lord wanted things to be.

Miraak's breathing was stable. He’d only managed to create this spell through years of failure after failure, and the passive version still left... afterimages. It was messy, but it would have to do. He kept as still as he could — until he felt it, the warm weight on his entire person that spoke plenty for the spell’s success. He was being watched.

Perfect.

A single paper crinkled, but it didn’t matter. He had brought them to him once more — his lead cultist.

They saw him and bent a knee. “My lord Miraak,” they said, reverential. “I bring great news.”

Miraak resisted the temptation to open his eyes and see them. The spell required lack of sight on his part, an oversight he hoped to not have to fix.

“Tell me.”

“A few days ago, we heard a thunderous sound from the mainland. Words. We couldn’t quite make out what they said, but they sounded like dragon language. And then, the gossip came — the dragons had returned.”

Miraak tilted his head. “So it is time for the prophecy. Was the sound, perhaps, something like ‘Dovahkiin’? I did feel a dragon soul pull, a few days ago.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Then Alduin is already as good as defeated, if this Dragonborn doesn’t die first.” He smiled under his mask. “It would not be wise,” he continued — but something was... _off_. He started again. “It would not be wise to confront this Dragonborn,” but there still was something wrong with the spell. He could feel the projection stuttering. He furrowed his brow, tried again to say, “You should not confront them. They’re the biggest danger to our goal right now — antagonizing them could bring our whole plot down.”

“A—are you sure, my lord?” the cultist questioned, nervous.

“Of course I’m sure.” There it was back again.

“But antagonizing the Dragonborn would be…”

“A bad idea.” And there went the spell again. Had a new book landed on his precious circle? He couldn’t afford to see it. “Is this all?”

“Yes, my lord. The rebuilding process continues as always.”

“Then I thank you, my cultist. Sleep now.”

Miraak opened his eyes. The spell’s weight lifted off him, and he was on his feet in less than a second, inspecting the circle. There was nothing wrong with it. What had happened?

He huffed and walked away, stalking on long legs towards a desk. He consulted with the papers he kept open there. Miraak reread everything, angrily flipping through loose bits and disheveled tomes. He opened the biggest one. The Black Book he would need to power his spell still didn’t work for him. Its pages were clammy to the touch. The text made his head swim, sure, and the bindings twitched with unreleased power... but he was — _and here it came_ — dizzied enough by them to see glimpses of the room where he’d left it, millennia ago.

...Before being spat back out onto pure greenness, that is.

Miraak was tired of the dizzying, sickly tint. _Soon_ , he thought, trying to soothe his bristled spirits; soon he would see red again, and golden. He was weary. It felt as if these years had all been a single ancient day with no sunset to mark its end.

Miraak closed the Black Book and picked up his notes. Then, he glanced back towards the circle. As he did so, a tentacle lashed out of the sea of ink and brought back with it one piece of the circle. He sighed; he’d have to rewrite it. Miraak walked back to the platform and knelt. He started carefully plucking the loose sheafs of paper, then slid them in a pocket between the folds of his robes, near his chest. Then, he began moving again, research in hand, scurrying out of his little meeting-room.

He knew the route by heart, now. A turn here, and a scrye there. Miraak’s footsteps echoed through a shifty bridge and then, suddenly, came to a stop.

A lurker, skulking through the hallway in front of him. One of Mora’s. Miraak crouched, hidden from view, and raised two fingers; an ice spike formed an inch or so away from them. His left hand’s palm crackled with electricity. The lurker barely had time to react. Before it knew it, there was an ice spike through its head, and its dead body was twitching with electricity. Miraak continued his way, careful that his footsteps weren’t too loud.

After a few minutes, he reached it. His corner of Apocrypha.

Hidden under a pair of hollow staircases, protected by a veritable wall of books, was his tiny cave. Miraak walked in, bending his neck to get under the entrance. He summoned some magelight, then looked around. He glanced the entirety of his worldly belongings: a few dozens of books he’d managed to salvage, a miscellany of scribbles, and his little nest. It'd been built out of crinkling notes and loose leaves of paper. The nest had then been covered in clothes taken from dead adventurers, fashioned into bizarre patchworks of comfort. Ancient enchantments were carved and scribbled all over it. They glittered brokenly, faltering from age.

Miraak flopped onto it and slid his mask off his face. Oblivion knew when Hermaeus Mora would next challenge him. To, say, find a specific book as his champion and feed it to the sea. Or maybe find a specific mortal who’d stumbled in, and duel them to the death. He sighed and flicked open a book. Today’s new findings included: a Nord’s scribblings insisting Alduin and Akatosh weren’t the same creature, some horribly-misspelled letter that stunk of romance to high heaven, and a manual on how to defend oneself from some creature Miraak had heard about when he was a boy.

He closed the manual shut and decided to start with the love note. At least it had characters you could get invested in.

He scanned its contents, then flipped it. Each misspelled word was carefully printed, yet still clumsy, delineating some kind of awful guilt-ridden loyalty. He'd found love letters weren’t as sweet and charming as they were said to be. When previous to fulfillment, the longing was usually quite well hidden behind the deadpan of pen and paper. When posterior, they were disgustingly lovey-dovey. But they were entertaining, and that was what mattered; what he’d learnt would help him not be driven to utter, raving lunacy. He’d tiptoed into those territories once or twice, as a particular skull he still kept mostly out of nostalgia could attest to. Keeping busy was the ideal, and routine kept one busy, as much as he disliked it.

Miraak finished the love letter and considered it for a moment.

He got up and walked over to a different part of the little cavern, then picked up a sliver of coal. He sat back down, then took his dismantled circle from its improvised pocked. Miraak flicked through it briefly, flick flick flick flick, rhythmic, and consulted briefly his notes. _So that one was missing, then_. He grabbed the love letter, turned it around, and cleanly traced a few lines onto the paper. It glowed blue. Miraak flipped through the papers and put it in place. There — now to hope it wouldn’t be too bad.

***

“Have you news, my follower?”

It’d been a week since he’d been informed of the prophecy’s beginning. He sat, as still as possible, the weight of the spell on his arms. The letter had worked without need of modification, which was excellent. Sometimes, the magic was randomly fickle, and those were the worst days; the ones where he had to rewrite a single rune a thousand times until it worked.

“I’m afraid so, my lord Miraak. The men we sent after the Dragonborn, as you ordered us to do, were killed.”

“What?!” Miraak nearly jumped to his feet in surprise. He opened one eye. “I dictated the opposite of that order,” he thundered — and then felt the spell’s weight lifting off him. Oh, was this it? “Follower of mine, I believe our communications have been compromised. Give me but a moment.”

“Re— really, my lord?”

“Yes. Now give me a moment.” The spell dissipated. Miraak stood up in the blink of an eye, then began pacing around his circle. Nothing was wrong. He made a strangled, frustrated noise and grumbled on his way to the desk.

He flicked through the Black Book’s pages. Oh, for fuck’s sake. Nothing was wrong. Miraak walked over to the edge of the platform and knelt, then dipped his finger in the greasy ink that surrounded the infinite library. A tentacle or two swirled around his finger, but he paid them no mind. He got up, walked over to the desk and ripped a page from one of the regular books around, then drew some protective sigils onto it with the ink.

He shook off the thick, ugly liquid, but it was already eating through his glove — he’d need new ones, and soon. He went back to the circle, protective sigils in hand, and placed the paper somewhere. Anywhere would do — in theory.

Anti-daedric sigils, he’d found, worked far better this way.

Miraak sat down once again. He let the projection sink into him, and soon felt the reassuring weight of its magic. A single footstep before him betrayed his cultist’s presence.

“Rest easy, my follower,” Miraak intoned, no doubt interrupting them before they could even start their worried little sentences. “The Library’s master will annoy us no more.”

“Oh, I… My lord. I apologize, I— if there was anything I could’ve done, to endanger this communication, I beg of you to forgive me.”

“Worry not, for it was simply… an easy-to-make oversight. You've done no wrong."

“My lord, what was it that was lost in communication?”

Miraak sighed — more than sighed, groaned. “I did not order for the Last Dragonborn to be contacted.”

“Oh, my Lord…” They were so _annoying_. My lord this, my lord that — hadn’t they felt anything wrong with the dream? Miraak had half a mind to throttle them.

“It’s no matter. We will have to deal with this issue as it comes. Hopefully, they will be understanding of our situation — or even better, weak enough that it won’t matter. It is of no consequence.” It had to be.

“T—thank you, my Lord!” Miraak could almost see them bending a knee. Of course, of course. Ugh.

“In other news, how is the construction of my Temple going?”

“Fine as rain, my lord. The pillars are as strong as can be. They will last for a thousand years!”

“Has the roof been placed yet?”

“...No, my lord, not completely. But the stairs! Oh, the stairs!”

“I am… glad to know the stairs are good.” Miraak liked architecture well enough, but he wasn’t about to rain praise on _stairs_. There was something about fighting tooth and nail for your own freedom, something that made the parts that weren’t terrifying... oddly mundane. Boring, even. “If there is no more news, then… I bid you goodbye, my follower.”

“And so do I, my lord.”

***

“Any news from the Last Dragonborn?”

It had been a month.

“No, my lord.”

“...Perhaps they didn’t notice the note.”

***

Six months.

“...And as always, there is no news from the Last Dragonborn.”

***

At the Windhelm docks, there was a stranger.

A young woman wearing a furry cloak walked backwards. She was waving goodbye to a few argonians she’d been talking to. They went back to their work, chattering a little between each other. She turned around and kept walking forward towards some door that led out of the docks. Before she was able to, she walked right into a nordic man, currently pacing around the docks.

“Oh! Excuse me,” she said. The man turned around to look at her and found all-black eyes, unblinking. He looked elsewhere, pushed her aside. Continued pacing.

“I said excuse me,” the woman repeated. The man didn’t reply. “Hello?”

“...speaking of some madness, someone named Miraak…” the man muttered.

The woman caught up to him in a couple short strides and firmly grabbed his shoulder, before pulling him towards her. “Hellooooo? Are you alright?”

“...if you’re looking for passage to Solstheim,” the man replied, automatic, “too bad. I'm not going back there anymore.”

“Solstheim?” The woman frowned, a bit confused. “Why wouldn’t you go back?”

The man rambled on, about losing entire days to people with masks. A light turned on her eyes, like a lightbulb flashing off.

“Well, I guess you’re going to Solstheim again,” the woman said.

“Have you been listening to me? I'm not—”

“Yes you are. I’m coming with you, and I’m fixing this.” There was a gleam in her eyes, like a little fire. “It’s as you said: it’s not right, losing whole days like that, no?” At his skepticism, she huffed. “I’ll give you twice the usual rate, you big baby.”

The man sighed. “Well,” he said. “ ...a man's got to make a living, after all. Fine. We'll cast off—”

“Tomorrow,” the woman said. “I need to pick some things up.”

“Tomorrow,” the man nodded, dumbfounded, and he went back to his ship.

Satisfied, the Last Dragonborn of legend left the docks, onwards to go back to her home.

***

Miraak knelt, picking through the woman’s possessions. Adventurers were rare; he’d gone decades without seeing new ones. Or, without them being singled out to him by the prince that dared to call itself his master, in a bizarre parody of a death sentence — which had been the case of this last one.

Hermaeus Mora liked to pretend he made use of his Champion in these ways, complaining of people misusing or dirtying his library. Tricking him. As if someone as simple as these people could, were Miraak’s thoughts on the subject. If it were up to him, Miraak would’ve left them alone; it was every man for himself in this place, and really, it wasn’t worth it. But it was dangerous to outright deny a Prince, much less you knew was the only reason you hadn’t already turned into a Seeker.

In any case, Miraak was uneasy at the task. This woman had been the first person he’d been directed towards since the little Dragonborn-related stumble. Knowing Mora, it was certainly no coincidence.

He shook his head and continued to rummage through the woman’s bag. Some potions, food… a sketchbook. Nothing out of the ordinary. Miraak hadn’t been hungry in millennia, but potions were always useful. He hesitated, then opened the sketchbook.

On the first page, drawings of a small child, sitting under what looked like a tree. A few faces in the margins. An old-looking orc, grumbling. He flicked through a few more papers and suddenly stopped: a dragon. The sketch was scribbly, fast; unreadable scrawls noted things around. Unlikely to be up close. Then, one the next page, a detailed draconic skull, the rest of the skeleton off-page.

Miraak closed the book. ...He’d keep it.

He got up, ready to leave; before he did so, he looked at the horizon. The sleeping dragons near Apocrypha’s summit stayed where they were, waiting out their sentences, curled tail to tail in an inhuman parody of intimacy. His so-called fellows, the only who had recognized him. The only who had recognized his soul, millennia ago.

He left.

***

“My lord,” was the cultist’s greeting, as always. “There is urgent news.”

“Tell me.”

“The Dragonborn has been sighted in Solstheim.”

Miraak stood still, frozen.

Then, he straightened his back fully. The spell crackled on his shoulders, then settled; the cultist yelped at the intermission.

“ _What?”_

“I— My lord, I’m so sorry. It’s my fault. I must’ve been weak, in some way, or—”

“Of course you’re weak. You’re all weak. _This_ was _not_ your fault, however.” Oh, no, it wasn't. “We will deal with the Dragonborn. They—”

“She, my lord.”

“—She decided to come here, and for that, she will pay dearly.” A woman, then. Fine. “What has she done so far?”

“Not much, my lord. She has appeared in the town of Raven Rock, on Solstheim’s south, alongside a companion. They arrived today, at sunset; one of my own, young Tensyne saw them arrive, and then saw one of them walk into the town’s inn. We are… still not sure which one is which, _but!”_ they added, possibly sensing his disdain, “We will soon learn!”

“Do you know of their names?”

“I’m… afraid not. The lad, he’s the youngest recruit, he says he talked with the innkeeper and learnt the name of the taller one.”

“...And if you don't know which is which,” Miraak asked them, every syllable dripping with _ugh_ , “how can you possibly tell that one of them is the Dragonborn?”

“W—well…” The cultist shrunk shamefully. “...To be truthful, our cultists were… A bit rough. With the captain of the regular supplies boat from the mainland. So no one new has come since then. And the shorter one did have…” They shrunk further. “...armor that looked like dragons’ scales.”

“So the shorter one is the Dragonborn, then.”

“It may be a gift?”

“And we’re back to square one.” Miraak sighed. “We will talk tomorrow, though. You should have told me earlier about no one coming to the island, though.”

“I— I apologize, my lord, I didn’t think it was important!”

“Everything is important. It is fine, I will work around it. Goodnight, my follower.”

“G...goodnight, my lord.”

Miraak dismissed his cultist with a wave of his hand and dispelled the incantation. He opened his eyes and let out the world’s longest, most tired groan.

His cultists. They worshipped the ground he trod on, and yet, they were unable to do the simplest of tasks without his immediate guidance. It was useless trying to talk sense into them, Miraak knew; they stumbled around like children.

In any case: a pesky problem had resurfaced. While Miraak was willing — and able — to fix it, it was ridiculous that he even had to deal with it in the first place. Which led to the likely cause of this all… Hermaeus Mora.

Of course. Of _course_ he’d do this. Mora was bizarre, unknowable. Miraak’s time dealing with him had yielded little information, and it was — _frustrating_ ; he would go as far as to describe the entity as jealous, childish (which was, really, truly hypocritical on his part; what is a dragon, but a spoiled brat?).

In any case, of course Hermaeus Mora would refuse him leave of this ink-infested domain, then wreck any plans he may develop to abandon it. Of course he’d be territorial about someone he employed in the manner of a trophy librarian. Of course.

It made his blood boil.

He sighed and watched today’s anti-daedric sigil burn to ash. One use only, they were. He’d started to run out of old pieces of armor, and would hate to start giving away his beddings to the cause. When you’ve been living in Oblivion for millennia, it was painful to let go of any comforts.

Miraak paused for a moment, then went back to work. Curses of unsleep did not cast themselves.

***

A few days earlier, it was late at night, in the stranger’s home.

She laid in bed, curled up, about to sleep. Surrounding her, in an inhuman parody of an embrace, were all her worldly possessions. By her bed, a chest filled with various wonderful things she’d picked up during her travels; between the bed and the floorboards, large sacks filled with septims. A dragon, sleeping on her hoard. She shook her head, as if to focus on the question of the evening.

“Mɪʀᴀᴀᴋ,” she whispered. “Where have I heard it before…?”

She fell asleep before connecting it to the first cultists’ war cry.

**Author's Note:**

> [my tumblr](https://lundiivith.tumblr.com/), [my twitter](https://twitter.com/LunDiiVith) , [my art instagram](https://instagram.com/lundiivith). always looking for more friends to make to talk about weird elder scrolls stuff with -- tell me about your OCs, tell me about your favourite characters, tell me why you think Alduin can, like, Get It... (please don't tell me about why you think Alduin can Get It, he looks like a gamer PC, I've already had this conversation).


End file.
